The subject focuses on the issues of developing methods and theory of art history, and curatorship in both global and Czech context. Teaching consists of lectures and seminars based on active teamwork with students. The course is divided into two parts. The first part interprets methods of art history from Marxism through feminism to postmodernism. The second part is devoted to a brief history of curatorship based on specific examples. Students analyze individual methodological approaches in in the course of the art history and apply their knowledge freely when analyzing academic texts. Furthermore, in the field of curatorship, the students are able to transfer their knowledge into creating their own curatorial projects. 1) Introduction. Methods of art history, theory vs. methodology, basic terms of art history, New Art History. 2) Artistic contexts. History and ideals. Marxism and materialism. Why there is no Marxism in Czech art history? 3) Analysis of the form, the sign, and the symbol. Semiotics: Saussure, Peirce, Barthes. 4) Feminism. Queer theory. Gender in art. Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Why there are no female artists in the art history? Laura Malvey, Linda Nochlin, Martina Pachmanová. 5) Psychoanalysis and art history. The Gaze. Visual perception. Sigmund Freud and art. Jacques Lacan - Study of the mirror as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience. 6) Post-structuralism: Michel Foucault. Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida. Postmodernism. 7) Visual theories in Anglo-American thinking. 8-10) Brief history of curatorship. 11-14) Curatorial practice: Artists in the position of curators. White Cube vs. non-profit gallery space. Institutional criticism. Interpretation of contemporary art. - A discourse on a specified text, minimum duration 20 min. - An essay on the presented topic in the extent of 5 standard pages - The oral exam follows the analysis of the essay and verifies the knowledge of the subject matter discussed at the seminars and the list of required readings - There will be a fifty-fifty proportion of lectures (monologues) and active participation of students in the course (dialogues).
The gained capabilities constitute an encompassment and an aquirement of knowledge and experience in the given field of study, they result from a concrete annotation of the subject and are aimed at a profile´s fulfilment of the graduate of the given field of study.